Never in its forty-six-year history, thanks to the Trump administration and Israel, has the Iranian regime been weaker. Never, since Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's 1979 Islamic Revolution, has the clerical system faced such a convergence of internal rebellion, economic collapse, military vulnerability, and psychological defeat. Never have the mullahs appeared so exposed and so afraid of their own population. This historic weakening is the outcome of sustained pressure and — above all — the courage of the Iranian people, who have risen against a system that has ruled them for generations through prisons and executions.
The foundations of the Islamic Republic — its claim to divine legitimacy, its violence, its image of invincibility, and its control over the economy — are all eroding at the same time. Regimes rarely collapse simply because people dislike them. They fall when fear changes sides. Today, fear is no longer only for the population; it has reached the highest offices of the regime.
For that reason, this moment is not the time for hesitation or compromise, but to intensify pressure. History shows that authoritarian systems often survive not because they are strong, but because their opponents become impatient, divided, or discouraged too early. Iran today stands at a crossroads. One path leads to democratic transformation. The other leads to the survival of one of the most brutal ideological regimes of the modern era.
If one examines the landscape honestly, only three actors are truly planning the end of this radical authoritarian system and toward the possibility of freedom in Iran. The rest of the international community, at best, watches from a distance; at worst, it enables the regime through trade, diplomatic normalization or silent complicity. The three decisive forces are President Donald Trump and his administration, the government of Israel under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and the Iranian people themselves.
Trump has altered the psychological balance of power between Washington and Tehran in a way no previous American leader had dared to do. For decades, Iranian leaders grew accustomed to Western caution, diplomatic hedging, and carefully measured statements designed to avoid escalation. They learned that repression at home would provoke criticism but rarely consequences. They learned that terrorism abroad would be condemned but tolerated. They learned that nuclear deception would lead to negotiations, not punishment.
This pattern, under Trump, changed dramatically. For the first time since the establishment of the Islamic Republic, Iranian leaders face a U.S. president who they believe is willing to act on his threats. This is a strategic shift. Trump combines two instruments that authoritarian regimes fear more than anything else: open moral alignment with their victims and credible willingness to use force.
Through words, Trump has broken a long-standing taboo in American policy. He has spoken directly to the Iranian people, not as passive subjects trapped behind borders, but as political actors whose struggle is important. Trump publicly encouraged protestors, praised their courage, and framed their movement as a legitimate fight for freedom. This matters. Authoritarian regimes depend on isolating their populations psychologically, convincing them that they are alone, forgotten, invisible. When the president of the United States openly recognizes their struggle, this wall of isolation cracks.
Through actions, Trump has reinforced his words with tangible pressure. Sanctions were treated as economic weapons designed to suffocate the regime's financial arteries. Officials involved in repression were targeted. Most importantly, military consequences were not just threats but were made explicit and carried out.
The Iranian regime for the first time understands that mass executions, regional escalation, or accelerated nuclear weapons development will no longer be met with statements of concern but with force. This dual strategy — moral clarity combined with strategic coercion — has produced something unprecedented: genuine fear at the top of the Iranian state, with reports indicating that regime leaders are now wiring huge amounts of money abroad in an apparent effort to safeguard assets against the regime's potential collapse.
Israel constitutes the second pillar of this historic pressure. For years, Tehran portrayed itself as the untouchable center of a regional axis, shielded by the Western reluctance to escalate. That illusion has been shattered. Israeli military actions against regime assets and infrastructure — especially those connected to the nuclear program — have shown the regime that its skies are penetrable, its secrets exposed, and its defenses irrelevant.
The significance of Israel's actions strikes at the mythology of the Islamic Republic. The regime has long cultivated the image of divine protection, presenting itself as a power that cannot be challenged. When Israeli operations reached deep into Iranian territory, that narrative collapsed. The population saw that the regime could not protect its own most sensitive installations. The elite saw that decades of propaganda could be undone in three hours.
This military humiliation had a psychological effect that sanctions alone could never achieve. It told ordinary Iranians that the Islamic Republic, which claimed absolute authority over their lives, could not even guarantee its own security. It told the ruling class that their monopoly on force was conditional. The most decisive force in this historic moment, however, was neither Washington nor Jerusalem. It was the Iranian people.
For years, US presidents, for their own convenience, pretended that protests in Iran were just isolated economic grievances or temporary outbursts, and pretended that regime survival was the same as legitimacy. The recent waves of demonstrations in Iran have revealed a society that no longer asks for reform. They demand an end to the regime.
These protests -- ignited by the destruction of consumer purchasing power and the impossibility of living in silence while a corrupt elite enriches itself -- quickly became political. Chants shifted from complaints about prices to rejection of the entire system.
The regime responded by killing thousands of civilians and arresting many more. Entire neighborhoods have been terrorized. Internet blackouts attempt to suffocate coordination.
Despite all this, much of Europe and the broader Western world remain silent -- a form of complicity. European governments speak endlessly of human rights while maintaining diplomatic and commercial relationships with the most violent regimes on Earth. They condemn repression in carefully calibrated language while avoiding confrontation. They worry about "stability" while ignoring that the Iranian regime deliberately destabilizes entire regions, funds wars beyond its borders, supplies weapons to Russia for use against Ukraine, and has orchestrated assassinations and terror plots on European soil itself.
The irony here is that Europe also suffers from the regime's policies — through terrorism, refugees and security threats — yet hesitates to support the one force capable of eliminating the source: the Iranian people. Instead, it offers statements, conferences, and moral flapdoodle.
This is why relentless economic pressure on Tehran must be maintained. Sanctions should not be designed for evasion and headlines, but as mechanisms that genuinely disrupt the financial capacity of Iran's security services, its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and its institutions of repression. Any country that chooses to do business with the regime should understand that it is indirectly financing torture, executions, and crushing democratic aspirations.
Military pressure must remain credible: deterrence saves lives. When a regime believes it can massacre protestors without consequence, it will do so. When it fears international retaliation, it hesitates. Trump's explicit warnings regarding executions and escalation altered calculations in Tehran. When Trump hesitates, Iran resumes executions (such as here, here, here and here). Removing the mullahs' fear would be a gift to the regime.
Moral pressure must remain constant. The Iranian people must continue to hear that their struggle is seen, respected, and supported. Silence kills hope. Recognition strengthens it.
Only three forces are actively pushing history in the direction of freedom: the United States, Israel, and the Iranian people themselves. Together they have created the greatest threat to the Islamic Republic since its birth.
The opportunity must not be wasted. The Iranian regime is cornered. To relax now would be to offer it time to rebuild its machinery of repression. Either the West stands with a population seeking freedom from a savage, fundamentalist authoritarian system, or it stands by while that system reasserts control through blood.
Dr. Majid Rafizadeh, is a political scientist, Harvard-educated analyst, and board member of Harvard International Review. He has authored several books on the US foreign policy. He can be reached at dr.rafizadeh@post.harvard.edu
